As Mark Gilderhus shows in an article in this issue, the
nineteenth-century history of the Monroe Doctrine featured decades of
dormancy broken by sporadic reassertions and elaborations of the policy
crafted by John Quincy Adams and James Monroe in 1823. Only in the 1890s
did U.S. officials adopt a consistently forceful line based on the
principle of nonintervention by European powers in the affairs of the
Western Hemisphere. Secretary of State Richard Olney's 1895 claim
of U.S. supremacy in the Americas marked the new attitude most clearly;
the Spanish-American War of 1898 indicated that the U.S. claim would be
backed by arms.

The new U.S. approach received a fresh formulation early in the
twentieth century with the proclamation of what historians would label
the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. In his December 1904
annual message, Theodore Roosevelt professed to make the Caribbean into
the United States' backyard:

Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general
loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as
elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized
nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the
United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United
States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such
wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international
police power. (1)

With this statement, Roosevelt enunciated not merely a corollary to
the Monroe Doctrine but an entirely new diplomatic tenet which
epitomized his "big stick" approach to foreign policy. The
United States was to act as policeman of the Western Hemisphere; it was
to put to use the right of interference it continued to deny the
European powers. Or as historian Thomas Bailey puts it, "The Monroe
Doctrine, which was originally designed to prevent intervention by the
European powers, would be used to justify intervention by the United
States." (2) An initially defensive dictum had been turned into an
aggressive policy. (3) Strictly speaking, it was a
"perversion" of Monroe's original intent, though not
exactly "a cover for imperial designs on Latin America." (4)
H. W. Brands has captured its century-old flavor of modernity by linking
it to George W. Bush's post-9/11 doctrine: "In his 1904 annual
message to Congress, Theodore Roosevelt issued a statement claiming for
the United States the right to act unilaterally and, if necessary,
preemptively, to maintain order in the Western Hemisphere." (5)

Of course, U.S. interventionism had been at work in Latin America
long before the 1904 pronouncement that was to legitimize it. (6) But
the great North American republic for the first time, as the
twenty-sixth president was well aware, was then strong enough to
monopolize interference in the New World; not only did it evince industrial and agricultural might but it had acceded to world power
status in 1898 at the close of a splendidly profitable little war.
"We cannot avoid facing the fact that we occupy a new place among
the peoples of the world, and have entered upon a new career,"
Roosevelt said. "We must dare to be great." (7) In an age of
empires this new condition called for a new diplomacy, especially in
that part of the globe where the United States was predestined by
geography to play a leading role. Yet Monroe's "doctrine"
showed a glaring inadequacy: nowhere was U.S. preeminence among the
American republics clearly stated. An addendum was therefore needed to
remedy that unfortunate omission and express unequivocally
Washington's claim to hemispheric supremacy. As Roosevelt had
pointed out eight years before he formulated his "corollary,"
did not Britain have her own Monroe Doctrine in South Africa? Why not
forbid European encroachments on American soil, such as the British
attempt to seize the mouth of the Orinoco? (8) Given its author's
growing belief in the Great Powers' civilizing duty in the world at
large within clearly defined zones of influence, the Roosevelt Corollary
was in a sense the Americanized version of the "white man's
burden" for the Western Hemisphere. (9) The world would soon become
an increasingly powerful United States' rightful arena.
Roosevelt's mediation of the Russo-Japanese War and Moroccan Crisis
could be regarded as an early extension of the corollary to the Far East
and North Africa, as "the exercise of an international police
power" by the United States outside the Western Hemisphere.

The catalysts of this drastic mutation were Germany's
aggressiveness in the Venezuela affair of 1902-03 (10) and the projected
isthmian canal, which by 1904 was becoming a reality thanks to the
controversial acquisition of the Canal Zone the year before. (11)
Roosevelt would forever claim, not altogether unconvincingly, that given
the Panamanians' unanimity in favor of the canal and the generosity
of the American offer, the Colombian government, far from being
despoiled, had only its mendacity, greed, and stupidity to blame for
American intervention on behalf of Panama's independence from
Colombia. The construction of the canal without Colombia's consent
was in the interest of "civilized mankind," Roosevelt said.
(12) The impatient and determined president had been served by the
conjunction of three factors that rendered secession inevitable: an
intense isthmian nationalism, a historic occasion, and governmental
incompetence. Yet, little regard had been shown for Colombia's
sovereignty and pride throughout the negotiations. (13)

From then on it was out of the question to tolerate more European
interventions in the Caribbean. (14) The protection of the approaches of
the future canal--the defense, in other words, of the Panamanian
lifeline--demanded that the Caribbean be turned into an American lake.
(15) The strategic concerns that had motivated the acquisition of the
Canal Zone now called for its protection. Despite its toning down in
1923 and 1928 and notwithstanding its official repudiation at the 1933
and 1936 Pan-American Conferences, the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe
Doctrine would remain in force unofficially and continue to guide
hemispheric diplomacy throughout World War II and during the Cold War.
As noted by Walter LaFeber, "It is the Roosevelt Doctrine, not
Monroe's, that Dulles, Acheson, Johnson, Reagan, and Weinberger had
in mind when they justified unilateral US intervention in the internal
affairs of Latin American States." (16)

The Roosevelt Corollary was a departure from previous hemispheric
policy in that it proceeded from a global vision of U.S. security. Until
the 1890s, Americans generally considered a coastal defense of U.S.
shores sufficient protection from foreign attack. The army and militia
would come to the rescue if needed. The navalist lobby of the 1890s, the
oft-called "Mahan-Lodge-Roosevelt group" and their supporters,
was the first to conceive of American safety within a global framework,
the first to posit that the United States would no longer be
invulnerable in the age of big navies and that its security could be
imperiled by conflicts occurring far from its shores in remote parts of
the world--an imperialist world in which power was measured in terms of
overseas possessions and military might. Alfred Thayer Mahan was no
doubt "the high priest of American navalists," (17) and some
of his theorizing on sea power would eventually be implemented by his
young fellow navalist, Theodore Roosevelt, from 1901 to 1909. Indeed,
"Mahan's philosophy of sea power [would enter] the White
House," as Harold and Margaret Sprout put it, but it so happened
that the two men saw practically eye to eye on most issues. It should
not be forgotten, however, that Roosevelt had developed his own thinking
independently. (18)

The naval buildup of the German Reich and the rise to power of the
Japanese Empire became new parameters for war planners but not for
Roosevelt, who had long reflected on "the world movement" and
identified long ago these two nations as potential threats for the
future. Both countries were felt to be likely to come into a collision
course with the United States at some point on account of their imperial
designs in the Caribbean and East Asia, respectively. Yet both sought
American friendship and neither was in a position to inflict any serious
harm on American soil. The personal correspondence of Roosevelt early
revealed a lifelong interest in geopolitics and concern for the security
of the United States. Japan and Germany were the two powers that worried
him most, as he would repeatedly confide to trustworthy friends and
associates while assistant secretary of the navy and later vice
president. The alleged "yellow peril"--a life-long obsession
of Roosevelt's--required the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands or
the establishment of "a protectorate over them," the
construction of the isthmian canal, and a naval increase aimed at better
protecting the Pacific Coast. In like manner, acquiring "the Danish
Islands," turning Spain out of the West Indies, and building up the
navy should serve notice to Germany, "the power with whom I look
forward to serious difficulty," "the only power with which
there is any likelihood or possibility of our clashing within the
future." (19) Curiously, the Danish Virgin Islands were on the
assistant navy secretary's mind in mid March 1898, but not Puerto
Rico. "I agree with you," he wrote Mahan, "that we should
not try to do anything much with Porto Rico at present." (20) As
for his apparently obsessive fear of Japan, it led him on several
occasions to warn President McKinley that in the event of war with
Spain, "we would have the Japs on our backs." (21) After the
Spanish-American War, the Second Reich would remain the only power with
imperial ambitions in the Western Hemisphere, hence its grudging
acceptance of the Monroe Doctrine when Britain and France acknowledged
U.S. preeminence there. (22)

Although the concept of national security did not come into its own
in the United States until after World War I, it should be noted that
the General Board of the Navy in the previous two decades was
legitimately concerned with foreign threats. With the British-U.S.
rapprochement of the turn of the nineteenth century, Great Britain
ceased to be considered even as a possible enemy, and that view was
paralleled by a similar perception of the United States in London. After
1900, and especially under Roosevelt, who as president strove
indefatigably to maintain an international balance of power,
Anglo-American solidarity and cooperation became the new catchwords--a
division, so to speak, of Anglo-Saxon supremacy by members of the
"English-speaking race." British and American interests in the
Western Hemisphere, notably, were felt to be identical. Yet, the General
Board's impression was anything but sentimental, for Canada was
"a hostage to British good behavior," a realistic assessment
that strikingly echoed, word for word, Roosevelt's early opinion on
the future of Anglo-American relations. (23) Whatever his touchiness on
the question of America's preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, he
valued the new Anglo-American entente as a most valuable asset in world
politics.

Germany's case was an entirely different matter. U.S. naval
officers were always wary of Berlin's intentions in the Caribbean.
(24) Latin American instability, they believed (and so did Roosevelt),
afforded an ideal pretext for frequent European interventions. Admiral
George Dewey apparently never recovered from the Diederichs incident
after his memorable victory at Manila Bay (25); as president of the
General Board he would persistently focus on the German danger. In the
fall of 1902, one year after Roosevelt entered the White House and
shortly before the Anglo-German blockade of Venezuela, the Navy
Department created a permanent Caribbean squadron with a
policeman's mission. In the summer of 1903, when the crisis was
over, the Joint Board was created with a view to bringing about some
cooperation between admirals and generals. In 1904 the Navy devised the
"Haiti-Santo Domingo plan" with the supposition that the Reich
would be the enemy. The same year, the Army and Navy began their first
formal efforts to draft joint war plans. In 1906 the General Board
voiced the gravest suspicions about Berlin's ambitions. The risk of
German aggression in the Caribbean would be deemed real enough to
justify such scenarios as the "Black Plan" of 1914. Of course,
especially after 1898, there had been an awareness of the logistical
difficulties that any outside enemy would have to surmount in order to
attack the United States, especially if lacking a Caribbean foothold.
Naval planners did not really anticipate direct action by Germany,
though a limited attack on portions of the East Coast was not ruled out,
at least until 1913. Nevertheless, war as a possibility was never
totally discarded. In addition, the construction of the isthmian canal
and its protection before and after its completion in 1914 made the
Caribbean zone vital for American interests. After 1898 the interoceanic waterway became a high priority for the Navy, which for years had
presented it as a crucial naval need; officers would come to regard the
defense of the Panamanian lifeline as a fixed national policy, like the
Monroe Doctrine or the Open Door. (26)

As already noted, Roosevelt's thinking on the Monroe Doctrine
and the U.S. status and duty in the hemisphere went back a long way and
fed on his reading and research as a young historian. Following the
Venezuela Crisis of 1895, during which he enthusiastically supported
Olney's vigorous reassertion of the 1823 warning, with its defiant
reminder of U.S. invulnerability in the Americas, he penned in the March
1896 issue of The Bachelor of Arts an article that set forth his own
interpretation of the celebrated pronouncement. According to Roosevelt,
the doctrine existed even before its actual formulation, as evidenced by
American opposition to Napoleon's purchase of Louisiana from Spain
in 1802. No territorial transfer, grant, or aggrandizement was to be
permitted in favor of any European power. Although he accepted the
status quo, he looked forward "to the day when not a single
European power [would] hold a foot of American soil." (27) His
defense of the Monroe Doctrine then was unmistakably nationalistic; it
was "not a question of law at all" but "a question of
policy." (28) It was also subtly imperialistic, as the corollary
would later show; Roosevelt claimed rather disingenuously that it was
"distinctly in the interest of civilization that the present states
of the two Americas should develop along their own lines," (29)
while implicitly postulating U.S. superiority and trusteeship over
"Spanish America." The future president's vision was
essentially strategic. In 1896 he advocated the instant annexation of
Hawaii, the construction of an isthmian waterway, and the revival of the
Monroe Doctrine, backed by a "first-class fighting navy"
without which it would stand as "an empty boast." (30) During
the next five years many of his hopes would materialize: Spain would be
driven from "the Western world" and Britain would acknowledge
America's dominant role in the Caribbean by reducing her fleet in
the New World; the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty would be abrogated and the
non-fortification clause struck out of the first Hay-Pauncefote Treaty,
which would clear the way for the construction and control by the United
States of the isthmian canal. (31)

Shortly after his accession to the presidency, in view of the
upcoming International Conference of the American States to be held in
Mexico City, Roosevelt instructed Secretary of State John Hay to remind
the "sister republics" that their stability and prosperity
were vital for the United States, to offer them generous commercial
cooperation, and to invite them to jointly champion the Monroe Doctrine
so as to better defend their sovereign rights and territorial integrity
against possible encroachments by a European power. (32) As vice
president he had similarly urged its recognition as "a great
international Pan-American policy, vital to the interests of all of
us." (33) Interestingly, at about the same time, he reiterated his
personal conception of the doctrine for the benefit of his German friend
and future ambassador of the Reich to the United States, Hermann Speck
von Sternburg, making it clear that neither the United States nor any
European power should try to acquire territorial possessions in Latin
America while cryptically, and no doubt unilaterally, "regard[ing]
the Monroe Doctrine as being equivalent to the open door in South
America." (34) His first annual message to Congress, on December 3,
1901, characteristically underlined the fact that "the Hague Peace
Conference did not object to the doctrine" and hoped that the
latter would become "the cardinal feature of the foreign policy of
all the nations of the two Americas," endorsed by both the Old and
New worlds. (35)

The Roosevelt Corollary stands as an ideal illustration of the
United States' righteous, paternalistic attitude toward Latin
America. Only Frank Chapman's blind devotion to the Rough
Rider's interpretation can equate it with "a policy of
fraternalism." (36) The most pressing problem at the time was the
forcible collection of debts from defaulting Caribbean or Central
American republics by one or several European powers, as happened (for
the last time) in 1902-03 with the Anglo-German-Italian intervention
against Venezuela. The corollary aimed at doing away with the causes of
foreign interference by forestalling them and enforcing sound economics.
Santo Domingo would be the first testing ground of the new policy in
1905 when the foreign creditors were about to lose their patience. (37)
Three years later Haiti came close to being next; in a private letter
that was not meant for publication, Roosevelt confided to William B.
Hale in December 1908:

Now, in Haiti, what we need is something that will show our people
that this Government, in the name of humanity, morality and
civilization, ought to exercise some kind of supervision over the
island; but this should be done as part of our general scheme of
dealing with the countries around the Caribbean. (38)

America's "right to exercise some kind of protectorate
over the countries to whose territory that doctrine applies"
predicated a superiority that Roosevelt did his best to deny, somewhat
unconvincingly. (39) The United States' interventionist posture and
practice logically resulted from this assumption of superiority and the
police duties it implied. Roosevelt's paramount preoccupation,
however, was safeguarding the Panamanian lifeline, and this to the very
end of his life. (40) Dexter Perkins has quite rightly demonstrated that
Monroe's declaration came to embody a Caribbean doctrine. (41)
Roosevelt believed that the so-called ABC powers, Argentina, Brazil, and
Chile, and even Uruguay and Paraguay, would in time become capable of
assuming for themselves "the guardianship of the doctrine."
(42)

Subsequently, in the 1920s and after, U.S. diplomacy became
characterized by a number of constants and by the repetition of the same
deplorable mistakes; the enforcement of law and order, like the
attending economic imperialism, was antagonistic to the principle of
self-determination, so dear to American hearts, inasmuch as
Washington's "protectorates" saw their legitimate
aspirations thwarted by the United States' power and self-interest.
As noted by Norman A. Graebner apropos of Manifest Destiny,

Manifest destiny left a heritage that continued into the twentieth
century in the form of American Exceptionalism--a belief that the
country had a superior virtue and obligation to correct the world's
ills. Like the earlier idea ... Exceptionalism was not accepted by
other nations, and it lacked a precise definition of goals and a
realistic consideration of how such objectives could be achieved
abroad. It is not surprising, then, that American Exceptionalism,
despite its perennial appeal, has brought no measurable success to
U.S. efforts abroad. (43)

Rebellion and revolution were logical consequences; American
supremacy sooner or later bred revolt and inevitably paved the way for
revolutionary movements. (44) U.S. policy was proof that international
morality cannot be equated with individual morality, as postulated by
Edmund Burke and the natural law school; whereas international morality
inevitably legitimizes self-aggrandizement, individual morality
emphasizes self-restraint and self-sacrifice. (45) In the realm of
ideals, as William A. Williams perceptively pointed out long ago,
American foreign policy has always been guided by three conceptions: the
generous impulse to help other people solve their problems and the
principle of self-determination, both being subverted by a third tenet,
the conviction that other people cannot really improve their lot unless
they copy America. (46)

(3.) Chronologically, and technically, Roosevelt's first draft
of the corollary is to be found in a letter to War Secretary Elihu Root,
May 20, 1904, in Elting E. Morison and John M. Blum, eds., The Letters
of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1951-1954), IV, 801, a statement which the recipient was instructed to
read at a New York dinner celebrating the second anniversary of the
Republic of Cuba: "Brutal wrongdoing, or an impotence which results
in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may finally
require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western
Hemisphere the United States cannot ignore this duty." A more
elaborate statement would appear in his annual message of December 6,
1904 (above), and the next message (December 5, 1905) would complete the
formulation of the corollary.

(4.) Frederick W. Marks III, Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of
Theodore Roosevelt (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979), 146.
Marks is loath to see it as "a perversion of the Monroe
doctrine." Yet, its imperialist underpinnings are hardly
questionable.

(6.) See, for example, William A. Williams, Empire as a Way of
Life: An Essay on the Causes and Character of America's Present
Predicament along with a Few Thoughts about an Alternative (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1980), 102-10.

(7.) Theodore Roosevelt, "The Duties of a Great Nation,"
in The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, edited by Hermann Hagedorn, 20 vols.
(New York: National Edition, 1926), XIV, 290, 291.

(8.) Roosevelt, "The Monroe Doctrine," in Works, XIII,
238.

(9.) In his eyes, Britain in Egypt, South Africa, or the Far East,
France in North Africa, or even Russia in Siberia and the Caucasus were
performing a useful civilizing role similar to the U.S. maintenance of
law, order, and justice in the Western Hemisphere.

(10.) Marks, Velvet on Iron, 38-54, has settled the "question
of [Roosevelt's] credibility" in this episode. The
twenty-sixth president evidently used pretty stiff language with the
Germans at some point during the crisis. What has been at issue among
historians in the past decade, however, has been the date, nature, and
circumstances of the "ultimatum." Richard H. Collin, Theodore
Roosevelt's Caribbean: The Panama Canal, the Monroe Doctrine, and
the Latin American Context (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 1990), 88123, offers a remarkably thorough account of the second
Venezuela crisis but does not do full justice to Roosevelt's role.
Subsequent works merely take up the traditional description of the
episode: Lewis Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, 1991); Nathan Miller, Theodore Roosevelt: A
Life (New York: William Morrow, 1992); H. W. Brands, T.R.: The Last
Romantic (New York: Basic Books, 1997); Nancy Mitchell, The Danger of
Dreams: German and American Imperialism in Latin America (Chapel Hill:
The University of North Carolina Press, 1999), like her earlier piece,
"The Height of the German Challenge: The Venezuela Blockade,
1902-3," Diplomatic History 20.2 (spring 1996): 185-209; Edmund
Morris, Theodore Rex (New York: Random House, 2001). For diverging
analyses, see Serge Ricard, "The Anglo-German Intervention in
Venezuela and Theodore Roosevelt's Ultimatum to the Kaiser: Taking
a Fresh Look at an Old Enigma," in Anglo-Saxonism in U.S. Foreign
Policy: The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1899-1919, edited by Serge Ricard
and Helene Christol (Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l'Universite
de Provence, 1991), 65-77; Theodore Roosevelt: principes et pratique d'une politique etrangere (Aix-en-Provence: Publications de
l'Universite de Provence, 1991), 279-94; William N. Tilchin,
Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire: A Study in Presidential
Statecraft (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997), 28-34, 252n68;
Kathleen Dalton, Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life (New York: Knopf,
2002), 237-39, 581n113, 581-82n116.

(11.) Dwight C. Miner, The Fight for the Panama Route: The Story of
the Spooner Act and the Hay-Herran Treaty (1940; New York: Octagon
Books, 1966), and Gerstle Mack, The Land Divided: A History of the
Panama Canal and Other Isthmian Canal Projects (1944; New York: Octagon
Books, 1974), are great classics, like David McCullough, The Path
between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1977). Collin, Roosevelt's Caribbean, is
exceptionally detailed and rich in Colombian sources, but biased. In
fact, the author's defense of the United States' Caribbean
diplomacy at the turn of the nineteenth century closely parallels, if
not espouses, the twenty-sixth president's own self-righteous
justifications and rests on the same ethnocentric cultural assumptions.

(12.) The Rough Rider's legal and moral arguments are best set
forth in Roosevelt, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, II,
692-757, and Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography (1913; New York: Da
Capo Press Paperbacks, 1985).

(13.) The Panamanian revolution and the signing of the
Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty caused a political earthquake in Colombia. The
secession of Panama represented for Colombia what the loss of Cuba had
meant for Spain in 1898, a great national humiliation.

(14.) Dexter Perkins, A History of the Monroe Doctrine, rev. ed.
(1941; Boston: Little, 1963), 168-70, notes the annoyance those frequent
resorts to coercion caused in the State Department during the last
quarter of the nineteenth century.

(15.) See, for example, the twenty-sixth president's annual
message of December 5, 1905: "That our rights and interests are
deeply concerned in the maintenance of the Doctrine is so clear as
hardly to need argument. This is especially true in view of the
construction of the Panama Canal. As a mere matter of self-defense we
must exercise a close watch over the approaches to this canal; and this
means that we must be thoroughly alive to our interests in the Caribbean
Sea." Roosevelt, Presidential Addresses and State Papers, IV, 603.

(16.) Walter LaFeber, "The Evolution of the Monroe Doctrine
from Monroe to Reagan," in Redefining the Past: Essays in
Diplomatic History in Honor of William Appleman Williams, edited by
Lloyd C. Gardner (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 1986),
139-40.

(22.) On Theodore Roosevelt's threat perceptions and security
concerns, see Serge Ricard, "Monroe Revisited: The Roosevelt
Doctrine, 1901-1909," in Impressions of a Gilded Age: The American
Fin de Siecle, edited by Marc Chenetier and Rob Kroes (Amsterdam:
Amerika Instituut, Universiteit van Amsterdam, 1983), 228-41. The French
had obviously abandoned all colonial hopes in Latin America since their
ill-fated Mexican venture of 1864-1867 and Suez hero Ferdinand de
Lesseps's resounding Panama failure of 1889.

(23.) Cf. Roosevelt to Mahan, May 3, 1897, in Letters, I, 607.

(24.) Nancy Mitchell, The Danger of Dreams, challenges "the
idea of a German threat" despite the wealth of circumstantial data
but given what she sees as the lack of archival evidence. Yet, Frederick
Marks III's compelling investigations of primary sources in Velvet
on Iron, 5-6, 9, throw new light on German-American relations in the
1900s and on the background of the Roosevelt Corollary. Mitchell further
asserts, unconvincingly, that the German threat served America's
expansionist purposes in the Western Hemisphere by highlighting--by
contrast--the protective, hence exceptionalist, nature of U.S.
imperialism.

(25.) The Imperial Government briefly fantasized about a German
protectorate over the archipelago. Admiral Otto von Diederichs who had
been ordered to the Philippines repeatedly made himself a nuisance by
ignoring naval customs and etiquette, interfering aggressively with
Dewey's operations, and violating the U.S. blockade. At the height
of the crisis in July 1898 an outraged Dewey threatened war with
Germany, causing the German fleet to retreat.

(31.) On the Anglo-American rapprochement, see, in particular,
Howard K. Beale, Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World
Power (1956; Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press Paperbacks,
1984), and especially William N. Tilchin, Theodore Roosevelt and the
British Empire.

(38.) Roosevelt to William B. Hale, December 3, 1908, in Letters,
VI, 1408.

(39.) Roosevelt, "Sixth Annual Message" (1906), in Works,
XV, 392.

(40.) Roosevelt, "Uncle Sam's Only Friend Is Uncle
Sam," in Works, XVIII, 332; Roosevelt, "The League of
Nations," in Works, XIX, 406-08.

(41.) Perkins, The United States and Latin America (Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1961), 18, 3-44.

(42.) Roosevelt, "The United States and the South American
Republics," in Works, XVI, 298; Wayne Andrews, ed., The
Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt (1913; New York: Octagon Books,
1975), 271; Roosevelt, "Our Peacemaker, the Navy," in Works,
XVIII, 109.

(43.) Norman A. Graebner, "Manifest Destiny," in
Encyclopedia of U.S. Foreign Relations, prepared under the auspices of
the Council on Foreign Relations, edited by Bruce W. Jentleson and
Thomas G. Paterson, vol. 3 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997),
106.

(44.) See, in particular, Lester D. Langley, The Banana Wars: An
Inner History of American Empire, 1900-1934 (Lexington: The University
Press of Kentucky, 1983) and The United States and the Caribbean in the
Twentieth Century (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989); Walter
LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1993).

(46.) William A. Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, 2d
rev. and enlarged ed. (1959; New York: Dell-Delta, 1972), 13.

SERGE RICARD

Sorbonne Nouvelle (University of Paris III France)

Serge Ricard is professor of American studies and U.S. history at
the Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris. He has published extensively on Theodore
Roosevelt, American expansionism, foreign policy in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, and Mexican-American culture. He is the
editor or coeditor of numerous books and the author, notably, of
Theodore Roosevelt: principes et pratique d'une politique etrangere
(1991), The Mass Media in America: An Overview (1998), and The
"Manifest Destiny" of the United States in the 19th Century
(1999). He was educated at Davidson College, NC, and at the Sorbonne,
Paris, and was twice a Fulbright research scholar at Harvard University.

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